


plucked

by Merit



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, jason lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-31 16:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: They’ve always shared with each other every secret, every crush, everything.





	plucked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohmyvalar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyvalar/gifts).



The summer was long, hot. The air hung heavily in the air, wrapping around her curls, dripping down her back, sliding around her neck. Jason, pale skin slicked with sweat, stretched out in the yard. The clouds moved slowly across him, jeans slung low on his hips, red hair ablaze.

Behind him the woods that banked up on Thornhill, that circled Riverdale swayed slowly, a scrap of wind moving between the leaves and branches. The woods hummed with insects and birdsong and new life, barely contained by the vicious gardeners her mother employed, razor sharp blades cruelling at fresh green growth. Rose petals falling starkly red against the ground like the blood from a fresh kill. Her mother stepping on them in bare feet, freshly painted nails like talons.

Jason shifted, the sharp line of his ribcage rising, lean muscles moving fluidly under silk like skin. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his skin, his chest barely moving as he breathed. A hand was fisted at his side, curled against too tight jeans. His brow was furrowed, a line marring his otherwise smooth skin.

They’ve always shared with each other every secret, every crush, everything. When Cheryl had been a girl, she hadn’t rushed to her mother or father when she fell, a fresh bruise staining her knee. She’d gone to Jason and he had smiled at her oh so sweetly, telling her that a kiss would make it feel better. She didn’t have to cry.

But Jason had been silent all summer.

She watched him, white bikini tighter than it had been last summer, slowly consuming a pink popsicle. It was melting into her hands, her fingers sticky, her toes curling.

And all of Riverdale was afire as the eldest Cooper girl started to swell like a ripe fruit.

 

“A scandal,” Mother murmured with relish, dinner knife slicing through the the near raw steak, blood flashing up against the blade, her long nails glittering. “Those Coopers, with their tawdry tabloid, always so _judgemental_. And now their teenage daughter is pregnant! Father unknown.” Mother leaned back in her chair, smiling at Father. Jason was a pale, pinched presence, barely there, a ghost. Father had been staring at Jason all night, heavy lidded eyes weighed down with wine and something darker.

Her father laughed, red wine sloshing in his glass, a dark undercurrent to his mirth. He had already filled in twice, his cheeks and nose pinkening as the sun slowly set outside the dining room’s long windows. Mother hadn’t commented, silverwear flashing between her fingers.

“They’re an ill bred family,” her father said, mouth twisting. Her mother smiled thinly, fingers clenching around her knife and fork.

“You don’t happen to know who the father is, Cheryl?” Her mother turned, eyes razor sharp, staring across the long, dark table. “Aren’t you in the same grade as the other Cooper girl?”

The air hung for a moment. Her brother was staring steadily ahead, just past her shoulder, his lips twitching.

“Oh there were so many boys,” Cheryl said, shrugging. “Who knows who the father could be?”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed and then she laughed.

“I’d love to see Alice Cooper’s face when she found out her precious daughter was spreading her legs for half the town,” Mother said, her knife hitting the china harshly, a discordant ring echoing through the dining room.

Their father laughed, pouring more wine, the red splashing upwards. “Now that would have been amusing,” he said. “But the Coopers were never refined.”

“That would teach the common slattern to turn her nose at the likes of the Blossoms. The Blossoms made Riverdale,” her mother exhaled. “And those Coopers just want to destroy everything.”

Jason’s gaze, his eyes, her eyes, their eyes, was fixed on her.

Cheryl was unflinching.

 

Riverdale was an one street town and the only place to go during the long, hot summer was Pop’s.

Cheryl had a strawberry milkshake, cherry on top when the Cooper sisters walked in. She stared, and the chatter at Pop’s died, everyone gaping at the audacity of Polly Cooper showing off her burgeoning belly. Betty Cooper, ponytail pulled back tight enough to cause an aneurysm, thinned her lips and glared at the diner’s inhabitants. Polly almost looked ready to faint, hands pressed at her stomach, eyes darting around. She’s always been such a shy, little thing.

Well. Not so little _now_.

Betty wrapped a hand around Polly’s shoulder and practically dragged her to the counter where she ordered two vanilla milkshakes.

Cheryl rolled her eyes. _Typical_ , she thought. But Betty didn’t seem the type to see the irony of the situation. Cheryl plucked the cherry from the top of milkshake and nibbled slowly at the tender flesh, staining her lips further red.

She’d always been able to see the irony. To see what people wanted to hide.

When Betty and Polly walked past, she couldn’t help herself.

“Isn’t it a bit late for someone in her condition to be out gadding about?” Cheryl said, waving the half eaten cherry around, smiling as Polly paled and Betty lit up like an incandescent light. “Confinement, I think?”

“This isn’t the middle ages, Cheryl,” Betty said, red spots forming on cheeks, like her father when he was mad. Cheryl blinked.

“She would have been carted off to a nunnery if it was,” Cheryl said, barely thinking, “But no. It is a bit late for that now, isn’t it?”

“High school will be over eventually, Cheryl,” Betty said, sounding like the judge, jury and executioner. “And then where will you be? Ruling a roost with no hens to order around.”

“I’m a Blossom,” Cheryl said and Polly flinched, stepping away as Cheryl stood.

“That’s nothing to be proud of these days,” Betty said heatedly. “You don’t think everything your family actually stands for won’t come out one day?”

“Betty please,” Polly whispered. “Everyone is watching.”

Betty threw her head back, a flash of white teeth against sugar pink lip gloss.

“Everyone is watching, Betty,” Cheryl mocked. “Bet you wish someone was watching when poor little Polly spread her legs and sullied the Cooper name. Then you’d have someone to _really_ hate. What sort of man abandons his child?”

“People only pay attention to you for two reasons, Cheryl,” Betty said lowly, too quiet even for Polly to hear. “Your last name and your brother Jason.” She turned, head held high, blonde ponytail flapping like a banner in the wind.

Cheryl ate the rest of the cherry whole.

 

Every year her parents held a series of events meant to showcase the family. Since she was a girl, young enough that she barely came up her mother’s hip, Cheryl had been sidelined. Jason had been front and center, the shining boy child, and Cheryl hadn’t cared. She had loved him even more when he smiled over her, a boy-king in the making, and held out his hand so she could join him in the light.

One of the Blossoms’ annual summer events. Relatives from across the country had filled Thornhill, redheads popping out of doorways, always watching, heads bent in whispers. Even they seemed obsessed with the Cooper’s girl fecundity.

A teenager could get pregnant, shocking.

In the corners, never saying anything, Jason gritted his teeth. When she couldn't stand it any longer, Cheryl retreated to her bedroom, hot tears in her eyes.

She undressed robotically, fingers ice cold, pale limbs unraveling. She stared at her flat stomach, poking at the skin there, wondering what it would feel like to have something growing there. Stretching her skin, til she was ready to burst. She shuddered. It would be like something out of an ancient movie. Still shivering, she crept into her bed.

It was a windy night, the great forest bending, the maples howling. At night she heard footsteps past her door, hands trying at the knob, frustrated sighing when they realized it was locked. Scratching at the windows, an owl, the old house settling, a night time visitor. Cheryl pulled her blankets up her higher, knuckles white.

 

They were dancing.

Mother and Father were holding court, society paying obeisance.

Jason was dressed in a tight black suit, something from winter that he’d almost out grown. He was so much taller than her now, Cheryl had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye.

She had worn white. She would never be a bride anyway.

He was staring past her, eyes unfocused, fingers loose on her waist.

“You can tell me,” she whispered, barely above the sound of their footsteps. The music, some retro dirge from the 1980’s toiled on in the background.

The fingers dug into her waist, nails curling into her skin, but Cheryl didn’t flinch.

“You can’t trust anyone in this house,” Jason whispered, brown eyes flashing with something Cheryl couldn’t identify.

“You’ve always been able to trust me,” Cheryl begged, tears welling up in her eyes, a veil obscuring her vision.

Jason sighed, suddenly looking older than his years.

“You’re still a child, Cheryl,” he said as the song ended. He smiled at her sadly, a melancholy cast to his shoulders as he bowed over her hand. Then he left, left her on the dancefloor alone as scarlet cousins and uncles circled her for the next dance.

Cheryl straightened her back and flashed her teeth.

 

Summer broke with a storm.

Wind and rain whipped at the windows. Great torrents of water ripped through the driveway, tearing rivets through the road.

Cheryl woke up early, before dawn, when the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The house was quiet. In a long, white night dress, she crept down the staircase, holding a single light in an antique silver candle holder. The single flame flared, light scattering, shadows developing in every corner. Thornhill had always been very good at keeping secrets.

The front door was open.

Light spread across priceless carpets and darkly stained wood. She blinked, startled, the candle a weak pinpoint against the slowly rising sun.

Jason was at the door, a bag on his shoulder, rain streaking his skin, red hair darkened to a rusted bloody shade. His skin was deathly pale, his eyes shadowed.

“Jason?” Cheryl called, echoed by another voice just beyond the front door. A girl, she thought, not feeling as the wax slid down her fingers, nails digging into the flesh of her palm.

He turned to Cheryl, but the girl called his name again and he looked beyond the shadows of Thornhill as dawn broke beyond the trees that had made the Blossoms rich.

He smiled, the first time she had seen him smile all summer.

She flew down the stairs, reaching for Jason, as he hefted the bag and stepped through the door. She grasped at his shoulder, nails sliding down skin.

“Cheryl,” he whispered, turning back at her. “This can’t go on,” he said, hand sweeping in her and Thornhill and all the Blossoms on the walls.

“We could take it on together,” Cheryl murmured.

"Can't you see that the fruit is rotten to the core?"

"We could change it, Jason," Cheryl said. "Us against the world, just like when we were children."

“This can’t be my fight,” he said, stepping away, someone moving closer, a silver of blonde. "I can't be a child anymore."

He shut the door in her face, loud enough to rattle Thornhill. Distantly she heard her parents stir. Hot tears ran down her face.

It had been Polly Cooper just beyond the door.


End file.
